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This work is based on The Wretched, product of Chris Bissette and Loot
The Room, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons
Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
THE WRETCHED™ is a trademark of Chris Bissette. The Wretched and
Alone logo is © Chris Bissette, and is used with permission.
All other images are used under Creative Commons.
BLOOM is directly inspired by the novel Wilder Girls by Rory Power, a
New York Times bestseller, and contains spoilers for the book.
BLOOM was written by T hor a
nd Litza Bronwyn o
f Baby Squalling
Dragons and was created for Wretched Jam. It includes themes of body
horror, violence, murder, and other adult content.
The Story
You are at an all-girls boarding school located on an island off the coast of Maine.
Raxter School for Girls has all but shut down after a plague called the Tox broke out
and began changing everything on the island: plants, animals, and the girls
themselves. The island has been quarantined, and no communication comes in or goes
out. Savage mutated animals make traveling outside the school walls dangerous and
forbidden except to a privileged few: those girls chosen to collect the supplies left by
the U.S. Military on the edge of the island every few weeks. But the supplies are never
enough, and the girls must fight for scraps or go hungry.
With only two teachers and under half the student body alive remaining, classes have
ceased and the girls have clumped into small gangs for comfort and protection. The
male teachers died first, followed by most of the younger girls, too weak to endure the
toll the Tox took on their bodies. Whereas the female teachers grew weak and sick,
the Tox invaded the bodies of the students and began to change them, forcing brutal
mutations like scales, gills, open sores, extra organs, and bone growths.
You're part of a small gang of girls — just you and two others. But when one of your
friends got sick and was sent to the hospital wing, no one would let you in to see her.
When you finally snuck in, she wasn't there. Her room is empty, and she's nowhere in
the school. Desperate to find her, you make the decision to break quarantine to look for
her on the island, even knowing how dangerous the forest is, even knowing that if the
military finds out you've left the school grounds, they'll stop sending supplies
altogether.
With only your sole remaining friend to keep you company, and perhaps even to sneak
into the woods with you, you must survive the horrors of the Tox, the danger of the
wilds, the unpredictability of the other girls, and the uneasy promises of the military
that they're coming to rescue you if you just stay there and stay alive for a little while
longer.
1
The Setting
A large island covered in dense forest, the school and surrounding schoolyard is the
only manicured area, though there did at one time exist a multitude of footpaths
through the forest near the school. Those, however, have long since been overgrown
and utterly lost; only the wide dirt path down to the dock remains unconsumed. The
school is only a short walk to the dock, though it can feel much longer with the
knowledge that wild, ravenous beasts are roaming the trees. The groundskeeper's
cabin isn't very far either, but there's no longer a path to it, and it would be nearly
impossible to find in the wildly overgrown and mutated forest.
The rest of the island is largely unexplored and, as far as you know, uninhabited,
owned either by the school or the state of Maine. There are rough, rocky beaches on all
sides of the island, too uncomfortable and too far from the school to ever be worth
visiting even when you were allowed to roam free.
The school itself is a large two-story brick building of solid, stoic design, built with
offices, kitchens, a great hall, and common room on the first floor, and dorm rooms,
hospital hall, and classrooms on the second floor. With a wide, flat roof perfect for
keeping lookout and sniping, the girls take shifts day and night making sure wild
animals don't break through the fence. The school grounds are a tight square around
the school building, devoid of trees. The fence surrounding the school has held thusfar,
but the forest presses in tight against it, and the girls keep their distance. The gate to
the fence must always, always stay shut and locked.
2
Game Setup
To play, you will need:
● A standard deck of cards with the jokers removed
● A 6-sided dice
● Up to 24 tokens or an additional four 6-sided dice
● A jenga tower (optional)
● Something to record with or write in, such as a video camera, notebook, or word
processor
If you don't have a jenga tower, you can play without one or use a dice mechanic to
simulate the degrading nature of a jenga tower. Set aside a number of dice with their
displayed values equaling 30, such as three 10-sided dice or two d20s with one die
turned to 20 and one turned to 10. You will not need to roll these, but will use them to
count down from 30 to 1. Each time you would pull from the jenga tower, reduce the
number by 1. When you reach 12, each time this number is reduced, roll a 12-sided
die (or two d6s). If the number rolled is equal to or higher than the number on your
count-down dice, the tower falls.
Set up your jenga tower or replacement mechanic. If at any time the tower falls, you
die from the Tox, a wild animal attack, or in whatever way makes the most sense to
you, and the game is over. Shuffle the deck of cards and place it within reach. Record
your first journal entry using the following script, or by writing your own similar entry.
Day 1. [Character name] is gone. She isn't in the hospital wing like they said. I
have to find her, even if it means breaking quarantine to do it. There's a place I
can climb to get out where no one can see. I just have to know that she's okay.
All other journal entries should begin with "Day #." to keep a recording of the game's
progression.
3
How to Play
Each day has two steps: the tasks and the journal.
Step One: The Tasks
Roll 1d6 and draw that number of cards from the deck, placing them face down
without looking at them. Flip over the first card and consult the tables below,
completing any task that the card tells you to do. Continue flipping over the cards
until you have flipped them all over. Discard all cards unless a card tells you
otherwise.
Step Two: The Journal
Record your experiences in a journal, voice or video log, or in the form of letters that
you hope to mail one day. You may arrange the events of the day in whatever order
makes the most sense to you, but all cards drawn in one day happen in that day.
Write about what has happened and what you feel, answering all the questions
presented in the card prompts.
Winning and Losing
To win the game, you must draw a card with a win condition (the Ace of Hearts, Ace
of Diamonds, and Ace of Spades) and complete the objective on the card by slowly
removing tokens of it to complete a task. Losing the game is far more likely, and
happens when you have drawn all four Kings and have them out on the table, or when
the tower falls.
Play knowing that it's unlikely you will make it out alive, and even if you do, your mind
and body will be irrevocably changed.
4
The Deck of Cards
The deck is divided into four categories based on suits. Consult the tables below each
time you flip a card to determine what you must do. Some cards will have you pull
from the tower, place or remove tokens from a card, or have you shuffle a card back
into the deck. Some will ask you questions about your feelings or the situation. Other
cards will spell out your death.
Hearts: The Military
The Military came shortly after the Tox, putting the school and the entire island on
lockdown. Now, no one is allowed to leave. You aren't allowed to leave the school
grounds, only a very small group of girls is allowed to leave under teacher
supervision to collect supplies dropped off by the military once every few months at
the docks, and under no circumstances is anyone allowed to leave the island.
They've promised they're coming with a cure, but after a year, that promise is getting
harder and harder to believe.
5
Spades: The Tox
The Tox is a plague that has invaded every living thing on the island. The trees have
grown fast and huge, the animals are feral and mutated and hungry, and the plants
have overgrown everything with record speed. The male adults died or disappeared
into the forest, the female adults grew sickly and weak, and the female students
developed wild and strange bodily mutations. The weaker and younger students
often died from the toll the Tox took on their bodies, and many of the older stronger
students died as well, their bodies unable to cope with the painful and unpredictable
changes. The girls who did endure their mutations were often incapacitated for days
on end, in extreme pain or weak or nauseous, rarely with anything useful to show at
the end of it.
6
Hearts — The Military
ACE While sneaking through the woods outside of the school, you find a metal
box hidden in a copse of trees. Inside is an empty syringe and a 2-way
radio. Through the static, you are able to contact a woman on the other
end. She says she's with the military and they're working on a vaccine, but
they need more infected blood. Leave a full syringe in the box as often as
you can. Without a vaccine, they will never come for you. Pull from the
tower.
Do not discard this card. Put it to the side and place six tokens on it or a d6
with the 6 face-up. At the end of each day, after writing in your journal, roll
your die. On a result of 6, you are able to get back to the box and put
another syringe of blood into it. Remove a token from the card or reduce
the number on the d6 by one. When you remove the last token from the
card or reduce the d6 to zero, make a final pull from the tower. If the tower
stands, the next day the military comes with a vaccine and everyone is
saved. If the tower falls, the vaccine they give you is a lie. You feel the
poison grip you in an iron vice and watch the life leave your friends' eyes.
You die last, and the game is over.
TWO On the far side of the island, you find an abandoned building that looks like
an old military base. In it are empty cots, a few spare medical supplies that
were left behind, and the medical chart of your missing friend. There's
blood on the wall, and on the floor, and you follow it to the back door. Out
on the lawn is a body, staring blankly into the sky. She doesn't respond to
anything you do or say, but she's alive. She's alive.
THREE You're chosen to go on a non-food supply run as a guard. When you get
near the dock, the teacher with you makes you stop and wait for the
military personnel on the boat to drop off their cargo. It's been so long
since you've seen other people, you step closer without thinking. One of
the men raises a rifle and yells at you to stay back. He sounds scared of
you. They all look desperate to leave quickly. Do you feel dangerous? Do
you feel alone? Pull from the tower.
FOUR This supply run, the military drops off more than just food. There's new
sheets and blankets, just in time for the cold winter months. There's not
enough for everyone, but you manage to grab one for you and your best
friend to share. Do you offer her the blanket or do you offer to share your
bed? Does she accept?
7
FIVE You know the teachers talk to the military on their radios. You steal one
and demand to talk to your missing friend. What do you say when they
refuse? Do you curse or cry? How does it feel when they condescend to
you and treat you like a child? Pull from the tower.
SIX You overhear a teacher talking over the radio to the military about your
friend that disappeared, in the present tense. How does it feel to know
she's still alive, wherever she is?
SEVEN You find a bottle of pills hidden in the bottom of a box of supplies. The
label says they're experimental, designed for the Tox. Do you take them to
the teachers or keep them secret? Do you take one of the pills? Pull from
the tower.
EIGHT When you're chosen to go on a supply run and your best friend isn't, she
refuses to talk to you. What do you say to try to get through to her? Do
you apologize? Are you angry because she's being unreasonable? How
long do you go on not talking?
NINE You overhear a radio conversation between one of the teachers and the
military, and find out that the island has already been reported as
destroyed. Despite what all the students believe, you realize that all your
parents believe you're dead. How does this make you feel? How was your
relationship with your parents? Do you tell anyone else what you've
learned? Pull from the tower.
TEN You overhear a radio conversation between a teacher and the military
about what must happen if they can't create an antidote. You must not be
allowed to infect the rest of the world. The teacher tiredly agrees. If no
antidote can be created, the island must be destroyed. How does that
make you feel? Are you willing to be destroyed to save humanity?
JACK You've been chosen to go on a food supply run for the first time. It's the
only time anyone is allowed to break quarantine to leave the school
grounds and go down to the dock. When you get there, you find more
food than you've ever seen brought back. Quickly, you discover that the
food shortage is because the teacher that goes with every supply run
throws most of the food back into the water, claiming the military has
tainted it with experimental drugs. When she's done, very little food
remains to bring back. You are sworn to secrecy. You can't even tell your
best friend. Pull from the tower.
8
QUEEN It's supply day, but no supplies come, which can only mean one thing. The
military knows someone's been breaking the quarantine. Without food,
the girls begin to break down into panic. Does anyone know it was you?
Does anyone blame you? Pull from the tower.
If you pull a card after this that says you receive supplies, ignore it and
discard it instead.
KING Somewhere, deep down, you know they aren't coming for you. How does
that make you feel? Do you tell anyone else, or do you continue to let them
believe you'll be rescued?
Do not discard this card. Set it aside where you can see it. If this is the
fourth King you've drawn, you hear the sound of military planes in the
distance. The other girls get excited, thinking you are going to be saved,
but you feel only a sick knot of fear in your stomach. When the bombs
begin to drop, you know they aren't coming to save you; they only care
about saving themselves. You are dead and the game is over.
9
Diamonds — The Other Girls
ACE You and your best friend find an old broken boat while sneaking through
the woods. You think maybe you can repair it, with enough time and some
luck.
Do not discard this card. Put it to the side and place six tokens on it or a
d6 with the 6 face-up. At the end of each day, after writing in your journal,
roll your die. On a result of 5, you are able to find a new part and get back
to the boat to fix it up some more. Remove a token from the card or reduce
the number on the d6 by one. When you remove the last token from the
card or reduce the d6 to zero, make a final pull from the tower. If the tower
stands, the boat engine turns on and you can leave together. If the tower
falls, the boat engine turns over then explodes, catching both of you with
sharp pieces of shrapnel. You manage to crawl to your friend as you both
gush blood and the boat sinks. What are your last words to each other?
After you speak them, you bleed out, and the game is over.
TWO You and your best friend make a blood pact to look out for each other no
matter what. Do you mean it? What are you willing to sacrifice to keep her
safe? Do you believe her when she says she'll do anything for you? Pull
from the tower.
THREE A shipment of food arrives, within it a bright, ripe orange. You dive for it,
along with several other girls, nails ripping at each other's flesh to claim
the sweet prize. Whose blood do you draw to win it? What injury do you
sustain? Do you keep it all for yourself or share it? Pull from the tower.
FOUR In the middle of the night, your best friend crawls into your bunk and
wraps you close. Do you stiffen up or relax into her? Are you the big spoon
or the little spoon? Do you fall asleep immediately or stay awake and
watch the moonlight on her hair? Are you in love?
FIVE Classes at the school ended a long time ago. Do you miss them? In what
ways has the school changed? In what ways has it stayed the same? In
what way are you changed, irrevocably, that has nothing to do with the
Tox? Pull from the tower.
SIX Your best friend confesses that she has feelings for you. Do you feel the
same? Do you kiss her? Does she touch you in a way that makes you feel
like less of a monster? How far do you go?
SEVEN You notice the other girls staring at you and whispering behind your back.
What do you think they're saying? What do you fear they're saying? Pull
from the tower.
10
EIGHT You and your best friend stay up one night, laying side by side in the same
bed, talking softly. What do you talk about? Do you dare touch her softly?
Do you kiss her in the dark?
NINE Your best friend gets sick, laid up in bed with a fever and shakes. You try
to get enough food for the both of you, but resources are scarce. How
much do you give her and how much do you keep for yourself? Do you
resent her weakness? Pull from the tower.
TEN Your best friend has a fever and won't wake up. The teacher in charge of
the hospital wing doesn't know if she'll ever wake up. They won't let you
in to see her; all you can do is sit outside and wait. What memory does
your mind drift back to of you and her?
JACK One of the students escapes from the hospital wing and comes barreling
straight at you with diamond-sharp nails. She slices your face open and
won't stop until you kill her. How do you do it? Is everyone staring in
shock? Do you feel hideous now, with your face in shreds? Pull from the
tower.
QUEEN You get into a fight with your best friend that abruptly ends when she
says something that utterly crushes you. What is it? What did you do or
say to make her say it? Pull from the tower.
KING You overhear a radio conversation between one of the teachers and the
military. You only catch part of the conversation, but things sound bad.
Really bad. You hear the teacher say she will take care of her students no
matter what. Their suffering will be over soon.
Do not discard this card. Set it aside where you can see it. If this is the
fourth King you've drawn, the teacher gathers all the students into the
main hall for a meeting. The door locks behind you, and the hall floods
with gas. All around you, students begin choking and collapsing to the
ground. The teacher drops to her knees also and whispers, "No more
suffering." You try to get to a door or window, but your vision goes black,
and you fall. You die and the game is over.
11
Clubs — The Wilds
ACE You find your way to the old groundskeeper's cabin in the woods. It's
overgrown and breaking apart, rotting back into the wilderness as if it's
decades old rather than only months abandoned. As you look around, you
hear the snap of twigs, and turn to see the groundskeeper approaching.
His skin has turned to bark and moss, his eyes glazed over with an animal
hunger. He lunges at you, and misses, and collapses at your feet into a pile
of dirt and rot. Pull from the tower.
If you have previously drawn the King of Clubs, you may reshuffle it back
into the deck.
TWO Through the fence surrounding the school yard, you see the shapes of
animals moving swiftly through the underbrush. They stop and turn, as if
sensing you, and catch your eye. What do you see when they look at you?
What do they want?
THREE While sneaking through the forest, you come upon the half-eaten carcass
of a beast bigger than an ox. What was it once? How has the Tox mutated
it? The smell is overwhelming. Pull from the tower.
FOUR You venture into the woods. You used to know all the paths here, but
they're gone now, swallowed by the plant growth. You think you know
your way, but nothing looks familiar, and you get hopelessly lost. Does it
feel like the forest is against you? Does it feel like the trees are mocking
you?
FIVE While you're on guard duty with a rifle on the roof of the school, a wild
animal breaks through the fence and goes straight for a younger girl. You
don't have a clean shot, and only half a second to react before she's torn
to shreds. Roll 1d6. On a 1-3, you hit the girl. On a 4-6, you hit the animal.
If you hit the girl, pull from the tower.
SIX Last year, you carved your initials and the initials of a friend into a tree just
outside the schoolyard fence. You can see it now, bleeding dark brown
sap. Something about the tree frightens you now. Do you feel its pain?
Can you see it from your dorm window? Could you swear it's drawing a
little closer each night?
SEVEN You sneak out into the woods, and barely have time to hide when you
hear an animal approaching. You press yourself into a hole of earth and
leaves and hold your breath as it passes by, your heart beating like a
frantic bird within the cage of your chest. Pull from the tower.
12
EIGHT The flowers are blooming, huge and bright and wild, in shapes and colors
you've never seen before. What do they smell like? Do you dare draw near
to them, where they touch the fence around the school yard?
NINE A storm sweeps in, raging with thunder and lightning. Are you outside in
the wilds or safe inside the school? What about the storm makes you
terrified to your core? Pull from the tower.
TEN You're on guard duty tonight, stationed on top of the school with a rifle,
with nothing to do but stare out at the trees pressing in on you. They've
grown unnaturally large and wild since the Tox came. Does it feel like
they're watching you? Does it feel like they're trying to get in?
JACK You hear a commotion outside, and a girl rushes into the school to
breathlessly announce that the gate was left open and an animal is inside.
As students and teachers arm themselves and rush to defend the school,
you realize you were the last one to sneak back in from the grounds, and
you forgot to lock the gate behind you. You hear screams as a girl is torn
apart by the monster, and its roar as it's caught in a spray of bullets. How
does it feel to have so much blood on your hands? Pull from the tower.
QUEEN You sneak out into the woods, and it isn't long before you realize
something is stalking you. You try to run, but it's so much faster than you.
It catches you, something huge like a wolf crossed with a deer, and
latches onto your arm. How do you kill it? What do you use to bandage
your bleeding arm? Pull from the tower.
KING While you're out in the woods, you hear the breathing of a huge, heavy
creature. You hide, but it catches your scent, and charges you. You run as
fast as you can, barrelling through trees that lash at your arms and face,
drawing blood. Your chest is burning when you finally stop running.
Do not discard this card. Set it aside where you can see it. If this is the
fourth King you've drawn, the animal lunges from the brush, latching onto
one of your legs. No matter how you fight, it's so much bigger and
stronger than you, and it rips you to shreds as you scream. It devours you
whole, and the game is over.
13
Spades — The Tox
Special Rules: If you flip more than one spade in one day, ignore each card after the
first and reshuffle all ignored spades back into the deck, with the exception of the
King of Spades and the Ace of Spades, which you always keep.
ACE You begin to develop gills along your ribcage. It's a slow and painful
process, but you find that you can breathe underwater — only briefly at
first, but then for longer and longer periods of time. You'll be able to leave
the island soon, if you want, but it would mean leaving everyone else
behind.
Do not discard this card. Put it to the side and place six tokens on it or a
d6 with the 6 face-up. At the end of each day, after writing in your journal,
roll your die. On a result of 4, you are able to practice breathing
underwater and build up your stamina. Remove a token from the card or
reduce the number on the d6 by one. When you remove the last token
from the card or reduce the d6 to zero, make a final pull from the tower. If
the tower stands, you can choose to leave, so long as you leave alone. If
the tower falls, your gills fail you and you can't get out of the water fast
enough. You choke and drown, and the game is over.
TWO Your hair develops a soft glow, beautiful to look at. It's one of the only
mutations anyone has seen that isn't horrific. Does it make you feel
special?
THREE Your skin cracks open, and flowers and vines curl out of them. They reach
deep down into the core of you, and you can't pull or cut them out without
excruciating pain. How does it feel to know the wilds are trying to
consume you from the inside out? Pull from the tower.
FOUR One of your hands grows hard, thick claws, and the skin turns into rough
scales. Your fingers become muscular and engorged until your entire hand
and wrist looks like that of a dragon. Do you try to hide it away? Will your
best friend still hold your hand?
FIVE You grow a second spine, a hard ridge of bone that splits your skin open
and makes you bleed. It hurts to lay or lean your back on any hard surface.
Do you feel like a monster? Pull from the tower.
SIX Your teeth fall out and sharp new teeth grow in. A burning hunger fills you
up. What do you want more than anything in the world? What are you
willing to do to get it?
14
SEVEN You feel a hideous pain in your chest, and it becomes difficult to breathe.
Your heart beats rapidly, and you begin to gag. After hours of struggling
past the pain and dizziness and nausea, you finally choke up what
appears to be a second heart, stunted and spasming. Does it feel like the
Tox is trying to kill you or trying to give you a gift? Pull from the tower.
EIGHT You start growing scales and your blood turns cold. You can't stop
shivering. What do you do to try to keep warm? Does your best friend
hold you tight?
NINE Your skin breaks open into sores, exposing flesh and bone. There seems
to be no reason for it, nothing about this mutation that could possibly
make you stronger. Do you feel betrayed? Pull from the tower.
TEN You watch a girl drop to the floor in pain, her body stretching and
contorting as the Tox attempts to mutate her. You watch her choke and
die, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. Did you know her? How
does it make you feel? Instead of discarding this card, shuffle it back into
the deck.
JACK The Tox takes over your body, plunging your nervous system into a world
of lightning-hot pain and shivering convulsions. It blocks out your vision
and fills your ears with the ringing of your own screams. You lose all track
of time. Pull from the tower.
QUEEN The Tox makes you shake with a fever, your body hot and cold all over,
your head swimming. You have no strength to fight the teachers as they
take you to the hospital wing and put you in a room alone. You can hear
your friend outside, arguing to be let in. How does it make you feel? Pull
from the tower.
KING You've been weeping black blood from one of your eyes. This morning,
when you wake up, it's fused shut and you can't get it back open.
Do not discard this card. Set it aside where you can see it. If this is the
fourth King you've drawn, you can feel something squirming beneath your
eyelid. A panic overwhelms you, and you try to claw the thing out of your
head. You draw blood and viscera but you can't stop. Once the other girls
find you, you're already dead. The game is over.
15
The End
The game is over, for better or for worse. Did you find your friend? Did you get off the
island? Did the Tox make you stronger? Did you manage to find tenderness amidst the
chaos and violence? Did you hold onto your sense of self?
If the tower fell, your body collapsed under the pain and mutation of the Tox or you
were attacked and killed by a mutated creature in the forest. It doesn't make sense and
it isn't fair, but that's life, isn't it?
If the game ended with you drawing all four Kings, your last King tells you how the
game ended: either with bombs falling, choking gas, a feral beast, or a mutation you
can't help but try to claw out of your eye.
If the game ended with all tokens being removed from the Ace of Hearts, Diamonds, or
Spades, but the tower fell with the last pull, you almost made it off the island, but fate or
just plain bad fucking luck intervened at the last possible second. How does it feel
knowing you were so close to freedom? Was it all worth it in the end?
If the game ended with all tokens being removed from the Ace of Hearts, Diamonds, or
Spades, you make it off the island. Do you manage to bring your friends with you? What
are you forced to leave behind? Where will you go? Is it worth saving yourself to infect
the rest of the world?
This game is about how our bodies change against our wills, how we can feel trapped
by things utterly out of our control, how it can feel like everything and everyone is
against us, and how despite all the horror in the world, there are still moments of
goodness and love. Did you find them?
16